RIP: LA Radio

My radio was stolen out of my car in October of 2006, only a couple months after relocating to Los Angeles. Being the cheapskate pleasure-delayer that I am, I left my car silent, without any semblance of musical contact for more than a year. No radio to get me through deadly LA traffic, no CD player to get my mind energized and my eyelids opened wide.

No sir. I lived the humbled life. My car was mute. My passenger conversations hushed and awkward.

It wasn't until early 2008 that I finally went nuts and bought a new stereo, with a CD Player/MP3 port.

And it was soon after that I found Indie 103.1, the best radio station in Los Angeles.

The reception was crystal clear on the West Side/Culver City area where I had moved. Up in the valley, the signal vanished, but luckily I spent little time in the valley. It was a beautiful, whirlwind affair. They played good music, music I liked by indie rock/pop artists I dug. I had waited my whole life to find a refuge from the disposable, processed junk food, top 40 radios stations with their Idol ballads and club crud singles, or the castrated sounds of lite rock and easy listening tailor made for baby boomers who wanted a taste of simpler times. Don't get me started on the state of modern rock.

But Indie was different. This was my music. Fresh, fun, exciting and new. It was so good that I felt no guilt in ignoring donations to KCRW during it's pledge drive of 2008, namely because they only seemed to play about two hours of music a day with Nick Harcourt's Morning Becomes Eclectic, which in and of itself played a ration of 36% good music I hadn't heard of and 64% unintelligible, godawful nonsense that played like new age satire. Otherwise, that station was all NPR, all the time. (Side note: I'm not anti-NPR, I just can't handle it for more than ten minute intervals, as their crisp, hushed, mushy-soft voices not only put me to sleep, but actually manage to disintegrate my masculinity one cell at a time.)

No sir. All I needed was my Indie.

Then things slowly changed. Just before the end of 2008, Joe Escalante's morning show disappeared, taking with it an array of interesting guests, David Lynch's offbeat weather reports and Timothy Olyphant's hyper-enthusiastic sports recaps.

This worried me. As 2009 began I also noticed some jarring new musical selections that belonged on a toxic top 40 station. Even some KROQ-style, crappy squaw-rock found it's way on from time to time.

But I told myself not to worry. Everything would be fine. There was still good music to find on my one, shining ray of hope on FM radio.

Until last week, when Indie 103.1 announced that it would cease broadcast immediately due to corporate interference and an asphyxiating market of traditional, manufactured sludge.

I had hoped the highest hopes and said the equivalent of prayers.

But I knew I was out of luck
the day the music died

Some people might not understand. Some might say it's no big deal. But good radio is going the way of print, slowly being replaced with corporate advertising misrepresenting itself as new and exciting music.

The DJ is going the way of the Dodo, quickly replaced by corporate stooges, yes men, and employees doing what the record company tells them (eat tar and die, Clear Channel.)

So yes, I'm pissed. And I mourn the loss of a great radio station, run by a collection of great DJ's that brought a little something to my life while trapped in my claustrophobic Corolla. Props to Joe Escalante, TK, Jonesy's Jukebox, Ted Roman, and all the fantastic people that made Indie 103.1 such a fantastic station. I hope you're all reading and Googling the mountains of online eulogies and blogging laments from the listeners you delighted.

I for one will regret having only spent a year with you. Though the station lives on in electronic, online form, it does so without the voices and the personalities that helped make the station what it was.

Farewell, Indie. You will be missed.